The United Kingdom is often held up as a successful example of gun control by those on the left. But a recent poll by the Daily Telegraph, one of England’s most widely-read publications, shows Britons themselves are far from sold on the laws.

In a poll asking readers what laws they would like to see introduced or changed, an overwhelming number of voters chose “repeal the ban on hand guns and re-open shooting clubs.”

Remember, radicals do not want to work within a system, they choose to destroy ‘the system’.

To paraphrase some sage advice, “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.” If your business or organization ever becomes a target of radical activists, it will be extremely helpful to know what strategies of attack will used against you. Short of having spies infiltrate their organization – a practice that is sure to be found out and exposed to your discredit – it would help to study their methods.

Known as the “father of modern American radicalism,”Saul D. Alinsky (1909-1972) developed strategies and tactics that take the enormous, unfocused emotional energy of grassroots groups and transform it into effective anti-government and anti-corporate activism. Activist organizations teach his ideas widely today as a set of model behaviors, and they use these principles to create an emotional commitment to victory – no matter what.

Like this:

They laughed at Sarah, said she was well you know. The word wasn’t even a word. Well that’s easy to fix.

In the window at the Oxford University Press building on Madison Avenue Monday they have a window display for their Word of the Year announcement. How delicious! Palin’s ‘refudiate’. The good folks at the press chose wisely and showed that they are freely engaged in the world of ideas and ignoring politically correct restraints.

In the tweet that was heard across the Web, Palin asked Muslims to “pls refudiate” the Islamic community center being built two blocks from ground zero. On Monday, “refudiate” was named the top word of the year by the American dictionary. While the dictionary has no plans to add the word to its pages, the NOAD did have this to say about the buzzword of 2010: “from a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts which Sarah Palin has used “refudiate,” we have concluded that neither refute nor repudiate seems consistently precise, and that refudiate more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of reject.

Remember when Bush tried to reform Social Security, and the donks jumped all over him for scare mongering? Well the scare mongerel is now at the door … One of the many features of Obammunism and his shutting down the US economy. We should be proud we have national health care rationing. And a federal government bankrupt and too big too fail.

Michale Barone reports:

Here’s something I didn’t know, from financial blogger Bruce Krasting (via John Ellis): Social Security tax receipts for the first half of 2010: $346.9 billion; Social Security benefits payments for the same period: $347.3 billion. Before this year, projections have always been that Social Security wouldn’t cross that line into negative cash flow for five years or so. Now it’s a reality. Congress has been spending Social Security’s positive cash flow for years. Now there’s no positive cash flow to spend.

To see how the negative trend has accelerated, consider the same figures for the first half of 2009: Social Security tax receipts were $366.0 billion and Social Security benefits payments were $334.3 billion. A positive cash flow of $31.7 billion has disappeared in the course of just 12 months. Scary.

Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.

The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.

Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.

U.S. ships are being outfitted this week with four pairs of the skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days. Each pair can process 5 million gallons of water a day, removing 20,000 tons of oil and sludge.

At that rate, how much more oil could have been removed from the Gulf during the past month?

The uncoordinated response to an offer of assistance has become characteristic of this disaster’s response. Too often, BP and the government don’t seem to know what the other is doing, and the response has seemed too slow and too confused.

Federal law has also hampered the assistance. The Jones Act, the maritime law that requires all goods be carried in U.S. waters by U.S.-flagged ships, has prevented Dutch ships with spill-fighting equipment from entering U.S. coastal areas.

“What’s wrong with accepting outside help?” Visser asked. “If there’s a country that’s experienced with building dikes and managing water, it’s the Netherlands.”

Even if, three days after the rig exploded, it seemed as if the Dutch equipment and expertise wasn’t needed, wouldn’t it have been better to accept it, to err on the side of having too many resources available rather than not enough?

BP has been inundated with well-intentioned cleanup suggestions, but the Dutch offer was different. It came through official channels, from a government offering to share its demonstrated expertise.

Many in the U.S., including the president, have expressed frustration with the handling of the cleanup. In the Netherlands, the response would have been different, Visser said.

There, the government owns the cleanup equipment, including the skimmers now being deployed in the Gulf.

“If there’s a spill in the Netherlands, we give the oil companies 12 hours to react,” he said.

If the response is inadequate or the companies are unprepared, the government takes over and sends the companies the bill.

While the skimmers should soon be in use, the plan for building sand barriers remains more uncertain. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal supports the idea, and the Coast Guard has tentatively approved the pro-ject. One of the proposals being considered was developed by the Dutch marine contractor Van Oord and Deltares, a Dutch research institute that specializes in environmental issues in deltas, coastal areas and rivers. They have a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.

That proposal, like the offer for skimmers, was rebuffed but later accepted by the government. BP has begun paying about $360 million to cover the costs. Once again, though, the Jones Act may be getting in the way. American dredging companies, which lack the dike-building expertise of the Dutch, want to do the work themselves, Visser said.

“We don’t want to take over, but we have the equipment,” he said.

While he battles the bureaucracy, the people of Louisiana suffer, their livelihoods in jeopardy from the onslaught of oil.

Like this:

Caracas stocks reached a record 52 week high on essentially very little volume, as financial stocks rose, but the absence of most brokers after the largest and most important were taken over by the government has ground activity to a halt, making specific changes in prices essentially irrelevant.

Volume was so low that just a few thousand dollars were traded all week for any local issue.